Asia

Since 26 October Sri Lanka has been plunged into deep political crisis. It’s a dangerous state of affairs, especially if the parliamentary conflict spills into the streets and communities. It could also lead to a major economic collapse which would, as always, hit the poorest the hardest...

A new wave of repression is sweeping China’s universities. Security forces have detained more than a dozen student activists since the start of November. All the victims are connected to a solidarity campaign for factory workers in southern China, where a fight to establish an independent trade union began in June. Their solidarity campaign,...

Pakistan is left with only $8 billion in its reserves, which is enough to cover payments of imports for just 40 days. This situation has caused the highest increase in the dollar rate in the history of Pakistan. The Pakistani rupee hit a historic low against the US dollar of 137 PKR. This means that the cost of living has risen dramatically...

On 27 October, 137,000 people marched in Taiwan’s capital in the 16th annual Taipei Pride demonstration. The number of participants broke the record in Taiwan, making the demo once again the biggest LGBT+ demonstration in Asia.

Sri Lanka is experiencing a dramatic constitutional crisis – an unprecedented parliamentary coup. It has seen the president – Maithripala Sirisena – break his coalition with Ranil Wickramasinghe, suspend parliament and appoint the former dictator/president Mahinda Rajapaksa to take the prime ministership.

On 16 August this year, after a term of six and a half years in Kazakhstan’s nightmare penal system, human rights lawyer, Vadim Kuramshin, walked free. His first words to the Committee for a Workers’ International were of deep appreciation for the campaigning work its sections have done around the world - to free him and other political...

Japan’s Heisei Era – which began on January 8th, 1989, in line with Emperor Akihito’s ascension to the throne – will end next April with his abdication. This will be a purely symbolic ‘end of an era’, however, as for many millions of ordinary Japanese working-class people, the misery of capitalism will continue unabated.